Author: B. Raman
Publication: South Asia Analysis
Group
Date: May 5, 2003
URL: http://www.saag.org/papers7/paper678.html
The authorities of the US Homeland
Security Department have issued an alert to all airline companies about
the dangers of a terrorist attack on the US Consulate in Karachi mounted
from the air. The staff of airline companies and airports have reportedly
been asked to be on the look- out for any suspicious attempts to hire trainer
or other aircraft.
2. While no explanation has been
forthcoming as to what caused the issue of this alert, it has come in the
wake of the arrest of six persons said to be connected to Al Qaeda at Karachi
on April 29,2003. Three of these have been described as hard-core members
of Al Qaeda. They are Waleed Muhammad bin Attash alias Tawfiq bin Attash
alias Khalid Al-Attash, described as a Yemeni suspect in the attack on
the US naval ship USS Cole at Aden in October,2000, Ali Abd al-Aziz also
known as Ammar al-Baluchi-- said to be a nephew of Khalid Shaikh Muhammad,
supposedly the operations chief of Osama bin Laden, who was arrested at
Rawalpindi on March 2 and handed over to US officials---- and Abu Ammar.Aziz
and Ammar are said to be Yemeni- Balochis. Unconfirmed reports say that
after initial interrogation by the Pakistani authorities, they have already
been handed over to the USA's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which
has flown them out of the country.
3. Following these arrests and the
reported handing over of the three Arabs to the FBI, the Pakistani authorities
have issued their own alert, warning the local police and intelligence
agencies to strengthen security measures to prevent any retaliatory attack
on US nationals or establishments by Al Qaeda or its Pakistani associates
in bin Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF)---the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
(HUM), including its new wing called the HUM (Al-Alami, meaning International),
the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the Jaish-e-
Mohammad (JEM) and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ).
4. What would appear to have caused
alarm is the recovery of a substantial quantity of explosives during the
arrests. The circumstances, which led to the arrests, are not yet clear.
According to one report, the Pakistan Rangers, during routine checking
of suspect vehicles on the roads, found one carrying arms and ammunition
and explosives. The interrogation of the driver of the vehicle led to an
Al Qaeda hide-out in the Korangi area of Karachi, where more explosives
were found and the other members were arrested.The collection of the explosives
by the terrorists indicated that they were planning a major terrorist strike
in Karachi, which had been prevented by their accidental arrest.
5. The Karachi Police are acting
on the presumption that there must be other Al Qaeda hide-outs in Karachi,
which have not so far come to notice and where more explosives might be
stored. During previous arrests of Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, no
explosives were found.However, explosives are available in plenty all over
Pakistan and particularly in Karachi and had been used last year in the
attack on the French submarine experts and in the car bomb explosion outside
the US Consulate in Karachi.
6.In addition to these three Arabs,
the Police also arrested three or more Pakistanis who were assisting them.
The names of two of them have been given as Muhammad Anwar alias Jabir
and Habibullah alias Abdul Salam alias Imran. It is said that before coming
to Karachi, they had participated in "jihad" in Afghanistan and in Jammu
& Kashmir (J&K) in India.
7. During the initial interrogation
by the Pakistani officials, Waleed is reported to have told them that last
year about 75 Arab operatives of Al Qaeda had fled from Afghanistan and
the bordering areas of Pakistan and taken shelter at different places in
Karachi. According to him, of these, about 50 are still in hiding in Karachi.
However, he denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of bin Laden.
8.He is also reported to have stated
that he and his associates were recruiting Pakistani volunteers for undertaking
suicide missions against American targets and that they had already recruited
12 persons from the LET.
9. There were six terrorist strikes
directed against American, French and other Western targets last year in
Karachi, Islamabad and on the Karakoram Highway to Xinjiang in China.Those
involved, who were subsequently arrested and prosecuted, belonged to the
HUM, the HUM (Al- Alami), the HUJI, the JEM and the LEJ. They were acting
at the behest of Al Qaeda. Their arrests led to a decrease in the activities
of these organisations. No major Al Qaeda or IIF related terrorist strikes
have been reported for nearly five months now, either in Pakistan itself
or from other countries.Al Qaeda , while continuing to be active in Afghanistan
in association with the Taliban and Gulbuddin Heckmatyar's Hizbe Islami,
has not been able to mount any major operation in Pakistani territory or
outside after the Mombasa blast of last year.
10. In the past, the LET had kept
its activities confined to its jihad in India and its assistance to the
Jemmah Islamiyah and other pro-bin Laden elements in Indonesia.It did not
utter any threats against the USA or target American nationals or interests.
As a result, American intelligence officials based in Pakistan did not
pay the same attention to monitoring its activities as they did to the
activities of Al Qaeda and the other Pakistani organisations mentioned
above, despite the fact that Abu Zubaidah, then No. 3 in Al Qaeda, was
arrested in March last year from the house of an LET leader at Faislabad
in Pakistani Punjab.
11.It has thus managed to retain
its infrastructure and source of funding intact.Though it has changed its
name to Jamaat-ud-Dawa to escape the consequences of the order banning
it issued by Gen.Pervez Musharraf on January 15,2002, it continues to be
referred to by many Afghans, Pakistanis and Arabs as the LET. Since the
beginning of this year, it has been trying to perform the role previously
played by Al Qaeda as the co-ordinator of pro-bin Laden networks all over
the world, as the supplier of funds to the networks in different countries
and particularly in South- East Asia and of suicide volunteers,arms and
ammunition and explosives to the surviving Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan
etc.
12.It has reportedly re-organised
its structure on the pattern of Al Qaeda and has vastly expanded its activities
to the business field in order to augment its sources of income. The "Friday
Times" (January 17-23), the prestigious weekly of Lahore, reported as follows:
"The Jamaat-ud- Dawa (JD), formerly known as Lashkar-e-Toiba, is snapping
up properties across Pakistan.Sources told the weekly that recent real
estate purchases by the JD amount to about Rs.300 million. It has reportedly
bought four plots of land in Hyderabad division (of Sindh) and six others
in various Sindh districts.The total price tag is about Rs.200 million.Recent
purchases in Lahore have cost it Rs.100 million."
13.During the recent Eid festival
in Pakistan,it was reported to have received charity contributions worth
Rs. 710 million, mostly in the form of the hides of the sacrificed animals.It
has also been in receipt of large funds from overseas Pakistanis. The annual
report on the Patterns of Global Terrorism during 2002 released to the
media by the Counter-Terrorism Division of the US State Department on April
30,2003, states as follows on the LET: "Collects donations from the Pakistani
community in the Persian Gulf and United Kingdom, Islamic NGOs, and Pakistani
and Kashmiri businessmen. The LT also maintains a Web site (under the name
of its parent organization Jamaat ud-Daawa), through which it solicits
funds and provides information on the group's activities. The amount of
LT funding is unknown. The LT maintains ties to religious/ military groups
around the world, ranging from the Philippines to the Middle East and Chechnya.
In anticipation of asset seizures by the Pakistani Government, the LT withdrew
funds from bank accounts and invested in legal businesses, such as commodity
trading, real estate, and production of consumer goods." The State Department
uses the abbreviation LT for the LET.
14.Al Qaeda has been trying to use
the organisational infrastructure of the LET in Pakistan, its network
in the Islamic world and its large funds for stepping up acts of terrorism
against the USA and Israel. The LET's close access to senior officers of
the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment could be exploited
by Al Qaeda to prevent any action against its surviving cadres in Pakistan.Many
members of Pakistan's scientific community in the nuclear and missile fields
regularly attend the conventions of the LET. By making use of this, Al
Qaeda should be able to seek the assistance of LET sympathisers in the
scientific community for acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Since the
LET is the Pakistani terrorist organisation most active in J&K and
other parts of India, its strengthened nexus with Al Qaeda should be a
matter of concern to India.
(The writer is Additional Secretary
(retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director,
Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and convenor, Advisory Committee,
Observer Research Foundation, Chennai. E-mail: corde@vsnl.com )
